WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID Will Open at Detroit Repertory Theatre

The Detroit Repertory Theatre will kick off its 70th season with When We Were Young and Unafraid by Sarah Treem. The production opens on November 6, 2026, at 8pm with a Champagne Afterglow, and runs through December 13, 2026, with four shows a week on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

When We Were Young and Unafraid  is a powerful look at feminism, survival, and solidarity. In the early 1970s, before Roe v. Wade, before the Violence Against Women Act, Agnes has turned her quiet bed and breakfast into one of the few spots where victims of domestic violence can seek refuge. But to Agnes’s dismay, her latest runaway, Mary Anne, is beginning to influence Agnes’s college-bound daughter Penny. As the drums of a feminist revolution grow louder outside of Agnes’s tiny world, Agnes is forced to confront her own presumptions about the women she’s spent her life trying to help.

“Ms. Treem…finds the feminist flux and foment in an era that has been more traditionally presented as comically awkward and quaint,” Ben Brantley wrote in the New York Times review of the 2014 production. “She has come up with a smart and exciting premise to bring characters of different backgrounds—and different notions of what it means to be a woman at a pivotal historical moment—into proximity and conflict.” 

Kelly Komlen is directing the production and is supported by a team of talented stage managers and designers. Leah Smith returns to the Rep’s stage as Agnes, alongside fellow Detroit Rep alumni Tayler Jones as Penny and Stacey Herring as Hannah. Making their Detroit Repertory debuts are Bello Pizzimenti as Paul and Jessica Annunziata as Mary Anne.